


we used to wait

by jencat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bickering, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Light Angst, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29417745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/pseuds/jencat
Summary: She doesn't glance up at him now; definitely doesn't need to, because she already has a perfectly good mental image of what Jaime bloody Lannister looks like dressed for the gym. She knows it better than she knows her own reflection, some days.  He's distracting enough in ordinary circumstances; quietly devastating in the conference room being obnoxious in a three-thousand-dragon suit. These days, he seems to have developed an even more annoying habit of ostentatiously stripping his shirt off halfway through a treadmill session that she's witnessed far too many times already.At the Harrenhal Resort & Spa, contract negotiations are not going to plan.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 36
Kudos: 196
Collections: The Exchange that was Promised: Jaime x Brienne Smut Swap 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diesis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diesis/gifts).



> Thank you to tarthiana and wildlingoftarth for organising! 
> 
> For the prompts 'JB find themselves stuck in something that's been arranged by someone else' and 'a fight', plus the Arcade Fire song [We Used To Wait](https://youtu.be/kJ7osdJ4H_8), which I promptly stole for the title as well, thank you diesis :) I may have run with the slow burn thing ever so slightly - hope you enjoy!  
> Thank you so so much to [Weboury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weboury/pseuds/Weboury), [catherineflowers](catherineflowers) & [ImberReader](ImberReader), for reading this and handholding and generally being wonderful and reassuring when I was losing my mind writing this, and a super duper thank you to [languageintostillair](languageintostillair), who is a very patient superstar with the best ideas and talked me through finishing the last chapter step by step at 4am when I couldn't string words together..!!

_Present day - Oldtown_

There's an envelope waiting for her at the front desk when she checks in this time. Crisp, expensive paper; honestly she's surprised it's not sealed with crimson wax; embossed with a sigil and those telltale initials.

But it's plain, just the colour of heavy cream as she smooths it beneath her fingertips. Inside there will be a piece of equally heavy and expensive paper; a room number scrawled in an untidy hand with some rare and sought after fountain pen. A room number, and a key card, and that will be all.

She signs her name neatly on the form; takes her own key card and makes her way to her room.

***

_One year ago - Harrenhal_

"Gods— Aren't you tired, after all that?"

She flinches at the sound of Jaime Lannister's voice, and tries not to scowl as she glances at the time on the treadmill display. It's late already, and he's _early._ She knows exactly how long it usually takes him to reach the cavernous hotel gym in the depths of the building after yet another day spent waging war in Conference Room Three— and today had been particularly brutal.

Her hands had still been shaking with adrenaline when she'd finally just walked out of there tonight, hours past when they were due to be done. She'd left behind a room full of snarling and resentful men in expensive suits, and she'd been hoping against hope that one of them in particular would be stuck on a call debriefing his wretched father for another half hour at least, given the way things had just escalated.

They've been stuck inside the dour, off-season walls of the Harrenhal Resort & Spa for _weeks_ now, an ill-tempered collection of Lannisters, Tullys, Starks and the occasional Frey, thrashing out this contract in _neutral territory_. Brienne has had more than enough opportunity to both become thoroughly sick of the pretentiously gloomy modernist decor upstairs, and to pay careful attention to avoiding the other denizens of Conference Room Three at all hours of the day.

And if she happens to pay particular attention to where _he_ is, Brienne feels she has a perfectly good reason for that too. What she'd really like right now is a solid half hour alone to bruise her knuckles raw and bloody on a punchbag; but it's not a good look in the boardroom, and Harrenhal really isn't that kind of place. What she's _got_ is a treadmill, and then time for two dozen laps in a pool heated just the wrong side of comfortable. 

Right now, her fingers are itching to hit the stop button on this particular treadmill. She's always careful to be finished up and halfway to the pool by the time he makes an appearance in the otherwise empty gym every evening; she's watched him arrive from the corner of her eye often enough. Upstairs is all polished concrete flooring and echoing grey dullness; the basement spa area seems to be designed as a contrast of deliberately rough hewn walls obscuring the rest of the room, odd corners thrown into shadow by the lighting. It's off-season and mostly deserted, and Brienne likes her time down here undisturbed; she knows all the sightlines by now. She's had plenty of opportunity to stand just out of sight and observe, if she wanted to. 

She doesn't glance up at him now; definitely doesn't _need_ to see him now, because she already has a perfectly good mental image of what Jaime _bloody_ Lannister looks like dressed for the gym. She knows it better than she knows her own reflection, some days. He's distracting enough in ordinary circumstances; quietly devastating in the conference room being obnoxious in a three-thousand-dragon suit. These days, he seems to have developed an even more annoying habit of ostentatiously stripping his shirt off halfway through a treadmill session that she's witnessed far too many times already. She doesn't need to look now; she's seen it more than enough at this point. 

And now he's here again, interrupting her run. Asking if she's _tired._

Brienne taps the speed up instead; edges the incline to be more of a challenge, and tries to even her breathing out. He's still standing a few feet away, watching her, and she knows from experience that ignoring him will only make him worse. "I barely even got a mile in before you decided to bother me. It's not exactly enough to tire me out."

"Oh I didn't mean _that,"_ he gestures carelessly at her as he steps on the next treadmill along, and it takes everything Brienne has to stay where she is. The last thing she needs now is trying to focus on her own pace over the distracting _smack-smack-smack_ of someone else running beside her. Not for the first time, she resents the fact it's too dark and icy to safely run out along the lakeshore by the time they're all done snarling in Conference Room Three for the day. "I meant the clusterfuck of getting absolutely nothing sorted again today."

"Seriously? After that stunt you just pulled earlier?" She snorts inelegantly; looks down at the display, and knows it hasn't been even nearly enough to settle the adrenaline that sent her shaking earlier. "Absolutely nothing is going to get sorted while your side insist on being completely bloody _unethical."_ It's the only thing that's even remotely going to settle her nerves after a day like today; she knows it, marrow deep. She needs to run. She needs it until there's nothing but the burn in her lungs and the satisfying, steady ache of well-used muscles—

She hears a bark of almost breathless laughter beside her. "Oh come on, it's hardly _unethical_ to go after the most commercial outcome for everyone involved. I know you understand that perfectly well—"

 _Fuck._ She taps the speed up again instead of answering _that_ , but it's a lost cause now. Their last pitched battle of the day upstairs had already sent her storming down here as soon as she could reasonably manage; her earphones left sitting on the table in her room. This really isn't a conversation she's calm enough to have now, and drowning him out isn't going to be an option.

Beside her, his treadmill speed amps up too. And oh, she's used to that too _;_ the irritating tendency of men seeing her ability to outpace them as some kind of ridiculous challenge—

He isn't trying to outpace her exactly, she suddenly realises. She hears the rhythm of his steps stumble for the briefest moment, then settle into something that nigh-on perfectly matches the sound of her own feet thudding steadily, pace for pace. She feels the echo of it reverberate up through her bones; in sync and echoing oddly from the uneven walls around them. She has the strangest sense that if she looked up at him now, she'd see him watching her still; that perhaps she'd see something she doesn't know how to think about right now—

Brienne hits the emergency stop button so sharply she still feels the sting of it in her palm a moment later, when she's back standing on solid ground, breathing hard. She thinks she should be surprised; be _something,_ when the sound of the other treadmill stops as well. She thinks, _what are you doing;_ bites her tongue and finally looks at him instead.

He's still breathing too fast for that short a run, she thinks; still too flushed. "It's been weeks," Jaime says, suddenly so serious; so unlike himself that she just stares for a moment. She doesn't want to think about how distractingly familiar the planes of his face are these days.. "We've been stuck here _weeks_ already because nobody else involved will even talk about compromise. Surely you have something you want to get home for?"

It's not lost on her that he says _something,_ not _someone._ She reaches for her towel, draped over the bar of the treadmill; wipes her face carefully and tries not to think about the whole unholy mess of what she knows he has waiting back home; about how unprofessional it even is for them to be taking negotiations away from the main discussion. It's not how she works; not something she'd consider with anyone else. And yet, they've been here before. He knows her well enough by now to know she'd still talk to him all the same.

"Of course I do," she says, although she can't think of a single thing in particular right now. She travels so much, for her work. For what Cat's asked of her, over the years. Spends her life in the office these days when she's back home anyway. "Nobody appreciates being stuck here. But I'm also well aware what's at stake if we just let you—"

"Me in particular, or Lannisters in general?" He interrupts, too loud in an empty room. Tywin used to send his brothers to represent at dealings like this, until they started talking about _retirement,_ and _spending more time with the family._ Then Brienne had unwittingly dragged Jaime back in from the cold at Cat's behest, and now Tywin sends him out to wage war on their behalf instead, and she's grateful and resentful for that all at the same time. Jaime is, at least, a known quantity for her in ways that matter. She knows sharply where he draws his lines, how far he will go, and when he will not go far enough, and that has always mattered. 

"I'm not here to make things more convenient for you," she tells him, steadily. "And Cat wouldn't sign off on anything even approaching what your father is asking for."

"Cat's not here, though, is she," Jaime says, stepping closer. "We are."

She tilts her head and regards him, curious now. Too close, now, she thinks. There have been dozens of these meetings since he's been back at Tywin's beck and call; it's adding up to years of it now— but she's never spent so much time with him before quite like this: near enough for his presence to become familiar again, and yet deliberately, professionally remote. There are far too many hours every day now just to watch him, from across a conference room table. Some days she thinks she recognises every crease in his suit jacket; every detail of the tie-pin that draws her eye to his chest; of the cufflinks she sees glinting at his wrists. The signet rings on those long, elegant fingers. All golden; all a reminder, and a warning. She's not _looking,_ per se. It's just there; there's so much opportunity to see it all now. 

Brienne feels her fingers dig into the towel she's still clutching, pulling the fabric taut. She's starting to shiver ever so slightly in the air conditioning, sweat cooling fast on her bare shoulders and abdomen now she's stopped moving. Her throat is dry, and there's a faint chemical tang of chlorine in the air that makes her regret she's not heading to the pool now, not after this. What she _needs_ is to be several floors away from here; safely back in her room.

"You're right," She tells him; watches some expression she can't place flicker across his face. "We are here. And this isn't how we do things." She steps sideways, carefully, away from him, and doesn't risk looking back. 

Brienne wakes up, shivering, just before midnight. There are sept bells she can often hear, across the lake from Harrenhal. They chime sweetly, on the hour, and there is so little sweetness to be had within the walls of this place. She leaves the window ajar so it wakes her, sometimes. 

It wasn't what had woken her now though, she thinks. The room is dark; she can just make out the congealing plates of her room service dinner still sitting on the table, barely touched. It had felt like she'd spent half the evening under a too-hot shower, hoping the water would scour the restlessness out from under her skin— and that had been enough, in the end, to see her dozing off still atop the covers in just a towel and her robe. 

She doesn't think she slept long, though; it's just— long enough to remember the edge of what she'd been dreaming. And it _had_ just been a dream; barely even so coherent she'd want to term it that. A collection of sensations still prickling her skin now; still keeping her heart stuttering over itself. She knows, rationally, that it's normal; predictable, even, for the mind to process things this way after so many days stuck in here; after tensions run so high during the day, and there's nothing else within these drab grey walls to distract from the memories here. Being back here at Harrenhal always brings things to the surface, and much of it is not pleasant, but still— She'd been dreaming, and it woke her, and she's shivering now.

She lays there for a moment, half lost to it again. Her own skin bared, beaded with water and beginning to shudder under the slow press of his lips and teeth and tongue, hot and wet and leaving marks across her ribcage; the rough drag of stubble trailing up the slight curve of her breast with such careful deliberation she forgets to breathe; so slowly that her heart beats fast and frantic with the anticipation of it— 

The warm splay of his hand across the tender skin of her thigh, sliding higher, easing her open—

She sits up abruptly, the thump of her feet on the floor already reverberating before she catches herself, breath shuddering through her. Presses her legs together against the ache of it. She knows it would be a simpler thing to reach for the curves of the expensive toy tucked discreetly into a bag at the side of her bed; simpler still to slide her own hand down to where she's slick and wanting, and let things work out well enough that way. She spends so many nights alone in strange hotel rooms, and it's not a new thing, this particular dream — certainly not a new thing to understand that wanting him has always seemed like a foregone conclusion. She knows all too well how to live in the ache of it, these days, and there's a certain appeal to the restraint of that; the tension of it it all. She's stayed away from him for as long as she could manage this time, and it's been a choice, the way these things have ever been; their loyalties on very different sides she's never known how to reconcile.

And yes, she's made her choices. She's just never quite sure if Jaime understands he has any choices in this at all. 

She goes to stand before the window, pushing the latch closed against a light spatter of rain. It's so quiet here; dark enough in her room she can make out faint pinpricks of light across the lake; the even fainter outline of herself in the glass, not even the shape of a person, really, just the pale vee of the white towel across her breasts; the shadow of the darker grey robe .

She reaches out to touch the cold glass with the fingertips of one hand. The other hand slips to unfasten the belt of her robe; untuck the edge of the towel sitting neatly across her chest and she distractedly shrugs them both off to puddle at her feet.

It's started to pour down, outside now. She can barely make out the long pale smear of her own bare skin now, the image dissolving in the rain-dashed glass already, but she stands looking for a moment longer. There's nothing outside but the darkness; nothing in this room but her own choices.

And then she turns away, the cold prickling at her skin, and picks up the drying swimsuit from her dresser.


	2. Chapter 2

The pool looks the same as it ever does tonight; low lighting set into the rustic walls, tasteful faux greenery and water features visible here and there amidst the steam. The glint of cameras artfully concealed in alcoves to account for the persistent lack of any staff. Brienne sinks down into the water until it closes over her head; until everything else is quiet, and the world almost makes sense again.

He's there, of course, when she surfaces. One moment she's swiping water from her eyes, the next he's standing on the tiled edge of the pool dressed in mud-spattered running gear, shoes and all. 

"How much do you want it done?" Jaime sounds oddly hoarse; breathless, and she just stares for a moment. He's soaked to the skin almost as much as she is, water dripping onto the tiles from his clothes; his hair, and she shivers. It's the incongruity of it, perhaps. She wants to ask where he's been. She wants to wrap her hand around the lines of his calf and the tendons curving into his ankle. She wants to reach out and pull him in, clothes and shoes and all.

"How much do I want _what_ , exactly?" Her voice sounds steadier, somehow, than she expected; even as she can feel her heart begin to skitter in her chest.

"To end all of this contract shit. Legally untangle the Casterley claim to the Stark estate rights, for good. All the assorted Tully nonsense too."

She feels her breath catch; tries to tamp her heart rate down. A little hope always makes it so much worse in the end. "I think that if you really had a way to end this whole absurd mess, you would have done it already. That you would have done it long before now." She holds onto the edge of the pool with her fingertips; leans back and watches him.

"Oh, you think—" He shakes his head at her in disbelief; rakes his hands through his dripping hair, and huffs out a breath.

A few drops of cold water land on her as he moves, and she blinks suddenly. There's mud all over the tiles where he's standing. "What in all the hells were you doing outside this time of night?"

"What I can't keep doing, is _this._ You're killing me. _"_ He toes his running shoes off and looks down at her. She meets his eyes, and swallows; her mouth dry. "I went for a run. That's what we do, isn't it."

She watches as he reaches down to pull his socks off too, soaked through. "Not in Winter; not in this weather, no. It's all ice and mud out there." _Not dressed like that._ Brienne isn't looking at the long line of his legs; the tender skin across his ankles. She could still reach out and pull him in. _"_ You could have broken your neck."

_"_ That's what you're concerned about?" He says, and strips off his half-dry shirt while she lets go of the side, drifts back into the deeper water.

"The showers are over there." She tells him unnecessarily, inclining her head. He knows perfectly well where everything is. She arches backwards; twists in the water towards the opposite edge of the pool. He hasn't moved, and she can't keep watching him standing there in nothing but black compression shorts; tall and lithe and a little bedraggled.

Brienne settles against the other side of the pool, the water almost up to her shoulders, steadied by the smooth scrape of curved stone against the skin of her back. The water's too warm to really enjoy swimming in here, but this; just watching—

He sets one hand on the tiles and drops into the water like he does everything else; deliberate, efficient. There's barely a splash. He’s halfway across in one lazy breaststroke before he stops. She thinks about the way he would have looked, pitched unexpectedly into the water instead; if it would have been better to see him gasping and wrecked before her— She meets his eyes. He's taking his time. _Better._

“You really want this all resolved?” Jaime asks her, quieter; closer now.

Brienne presses her hands flat against the tiles behind her; trying not to think of what she wants to do with them, now he’s near enough to reach out and touch. “Is that what we’re doing, resolving things?” 

“Now? We’re— Negotiating.” 

It takes everything she has not to close the last few inches left. She’s good at waiting, though; go long enough without something and you know how to exist in the absence of it a while longer. She shifts back against the side of the pool, and waits. “So what are you offering?”

All the answer she gets is the slow skim of his fingertips up along her ribs; the press of his lips to her throat until she gasps; shuddering a breath out as he leans closer. And then it’s all lost to lips and tongue and teeth for a few breathless minutes; hours maybe; his mouth is on hers; her hands clutching at his arms to keep him as close as she can until they come up for air. 

"That was still low, what you did today. Even for your side. I haven’t forgotten it." She says it shakily; feels him sigh against the skin of her neck.

"I know." She closes her eyes and tries to work out quite what it is she can hear in his voice— regret, or resignation, or if it's something quiet and new this time. "I had to come up with something. They've been getting pretty frantic, looking for some kind of leverage they can use against you."

Brienne settles one hand against his upper arm; the skin warm beneath her palm. Slides it higher to cradle the side of his face, until he looks up to meet her gaze. "Calling in the Tully loans doesn’t do anything to me. You just went after the one person who isn't even here, because he has family to worry about."

"It was a bluff. It was a _good_ bluff, but I wouldn't have gone through with it.” He presses a kiss to her palm; leans closer to nuzzle against her cheek, and she stops breathing entirely for a moment. “You’d never have forgiven me.”

She can feel the lightest touch of his fingertips trailing over her, through the thin fabric of her swimsuit. The scrape of his thumbnail across her nipple, the heel of his hand pressing between her legs—

She thinks _fuck,_ andarches against him. "There are cameras in here, you know."

"There _were_ cameras recording in here. Technically." He moves his thumb slowly, under the edge of her suit, and she draws in a shuddering breath as it brushes her clit. It was never going to take much, tonight. "I may have taken care of that. I _hope_ it's taken care of, I offered them enough."

The thought of someone watching them, anonymous grey figures writhing together on a screen, makes her swallow sharply. This whole thing is absurd. Anyone could walk in and— "That's… How did you even know I'd come down here tonight?"

Jaime sets his teeth around the tender skin of her earlobe, and tugs gently. It draws some low, needy, unfamiliar sound from her throat, even as he slides two fingers into where she’s been wet and aching for him since he walked into the room, and she considers she might be about to lose her mind. "You always swim. There’s always the faintest trace of it in your hair, when you walk me past this week. When I’m sitting opposite you for seven fucking hours a day. I keep thinking about it. About you. I just nearly broke my neck running the fucking Gods Eye path for an hour in the rain trying notto think about it, and there you were. What else were you going to be doing tonight?”

She slides a hand around his neck; raking the damp strands of hair at his nape as he presses her back against the wall; moves against her, within her. Brienne thinks about lines still to be drawn; about the splay of his hand on her thigh as it curls around his hip; about the hard, hot press of his cock moving against her, the fabric of his shorts still between them and not even nearly close enough yet to where she wants it. She thinks about the many and varied meanings of _compromise_ as her breath skitters and catches; as his hand makes her shudder and whine.

“I was sleeping, earlier,” She says against his ear. “I dreamed about your mouth on me.”

He groans at that; dips his head low enough she can feel the warm, wet scrape of his teeth against her nipple even through the fabric, and his fingers crook inside her, and it’s enough to send her over the edge and arching against him; clenching around him. Nothing but warm skin and the hot press of his mouth against hers, swallowing all the sounds he coaxes out of her. 

***

Later — slightly later — when she has her breath back, and they’re safely out of the pool, wrapped in robes; when she’s pushed him down on one of the cushioned wooden loungers to trade lazy, open-mouthed kisses because the alternative is _talking_ about what the fuck is happening here—

Brienne tugs his lower lip between her teeth, the barest amount of pressure; holds her breath to hear the sound he makes before she lets go. He’s sprawled beneath her on the lounger and she can’t seem to stop touching him; she needs— 

She sighs, and reluctantly sits back on her heels; watches his face as she puts some space between them. She _needs_ to be able to think clearly, for a moment; for the first time since he’d walked into the room tonight. 

Jaime says, quietly, “We have unfinished business, don’t we.” 

She nods; folds her hands together tightly. “I need to be able to walk back in that room tomorrow and get them to agree to sign off on it, before this escalates any more. You said you had a way to finish it.”

_"_ I can do it - Cat’s part of it would be safe, I promise. It would mean conceding the residuals from Riverrun—" He sees the look on her face, "I know, you'd have to talk Brynden into it, but—"

"I think you've pretty much put that in motion, going after his nephew like that." She ignores the look he gives her; she wouldn’t even know how to pretend approval after all that, and what would be the point?

She watches him sigh. "I’ve put as much on the line as I can. Just make them see sense, and we can all move on to salvaging the next disaster they come up with."

Brienne tilts her head, considering. “Do you ever think about not doing this anymore, for them? I know it’s family, but—”

“It’s just—” He shrugs. “Damage limitation. I can stop it being worse than it would.”

“And how much is enough? How much of your life are you going to give to this?” She twists her hands together; almost wishes the words back as he stares at her. 

“How much are you going to give, to the Starks?”

“I think—” Brienne gives a shaky laugh. “I think I might be done. If they’re safe; if you’re serious about finding a way out of the contract, for good? It feels like I’ve stayed North long enough — it's just not been an option to leave, with things the way they were. The way they still _are,_ if you’re not serious?”

“Oh, I’m definitely serious,” he tells her, reaches to brush his thumb along the curve of her cheek until she looks up to meet his gaze; all the teasing gone from his voice. “I need you to believe that.”

Her breath catches in her throat again. The thing she believes right now is that she’s in so, so much trouble.

“I _believe_ I’m being.. Unprofessional and easily swayed.” She feels her cheeks flush, thinking about what they just _did_ , and it seems the most ridiculous thing.

“I thought you were the one persuading me,” He leans up, close enough to murmur it against the delicate skin beneath her ear, and her skin gets somehow even hotter at the sudden sharp memory. 

She bites back a slightly hysterical laugh. “I… uh, I’m not sure I was actually very persuasive, on that front.” She thinks about leaning forward; about sliding her hands along the curves of his thighs now; up under the folds of the robe—

He looks at her, and bites his lip, and she blinks. Feels the warm press of his hands over her own, untangling her fingers until they’re linked with his instead; his forehead resting against hers.

“It’ll keep. Think of it as.. motivation, for me not to fuck this up.”

***

Brienne hears the sept bell chime across the lake from where she’s standing out in the freezing mud on the shoreline, just after dawn the next morning. She’d been restless all night, alone in her room; slept a little; hadn’t dreamed. The hotel’s borrowed rubber boots are only slightly incongruous now against the sharp lines of her suit beneath the parka, and she doesn’t look back at the walls of Harrenhal looming behind her. It’s colder than it was yesterday, and the air is sharp and crisp. She watches her breath steam in great plumes as the light moves across the water in shades of molten gold and grey; the sound of birds and the world stirring beneath it all. 

She wraps her arms around herself and doesn’t think about what she’s risking, if it all goes wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

It's not that she expects him to be waiting, when she gets back to her room that night. She'd just spent half the evening nursing a glass of half-flat fizz in the gloomy lounge bar, watching her colleagues make increasingly belligerent toasts about how badly the new contract suited them; knowing the Lannister-Frey contingent had decamped to the much more plush library bar downstairs instead. No promises had been made when they parted the night before; no plans - not even numbers exchanged. She'd decided the day was due to be fraught enough, without complicating things further. And then she'd spent all day sitting across a table from him in Conference Room Three, trying not to think about how complicated things already were.

But still— she turns the corner, and Jaime is leaning against the wall by the door to her room. Of course he is. Still clad in a rumpled suit, but he seems to have lost his tie somewhere along the way; a couple of buttons undone already. She stops, key card in hand, and reminds herself that subtlety never was his strong suit; thinks he looks tired. "I don't believe for a minute you've been waiting there long."

"Perhaps I have," he says, and pushes away from the wall. "Perhaps I couldn't think about anything else."

Brienne smiles, and shakes her head, and moves past him to unlock the door. "You are so full of shit."

"Hmmm," he says, "Perhaps," and she takes a shaky breath as his hands slide around her waist; as he leans in to nuzzle the side of her neck. The warmth of it almost undoes her. He whispers, "You know there are cameras out here too, right?"

"You mean you didn't pay someone to get them switched off as well?" She pushes the door open slightly and turns to face him; considers the consequences of anyone seeing this, and reaches for the collar of his stupidly expensive jacket anyway. "I'm actually disappointed."

He's kissing her then, as they stumble through the door; tasting faintly of whatever expensive liquor was served, down in the library bar. She can't seem to make up her mind whether to let go his jacket to divest him of it, or use it to keep him close when he pushes her back against the wall just inside the door.

Jaime licks a line down the column of her throat and murmurs, "I _did_ bribe your bartender to let me know when you were leaving, if that's any more impressive."

Brienne laughs, breathless; co-ordinates her hands enough to slide the jacket off his shoulders; make a start on unbuttoning the rest of his shirt as she walks him back towards the bed. She shrugs off her own jacket impatiently; steps out of her shoes, remembers she'd had enough of her tights digging into her waist an hour ago, and discarded them in the bathroom at the bar. "Gods, you do love your cloak and dagger nonsense."

"Maybe I just like throwing money at people to get at what I want."

He reaches round for the zip at the back of her tailored dress, and she leans into him for a moment to make it easier. When he looks back up, she runs her fingertips lightly along the side of his face. "You did a good thing today. I know they're going to give you shit for it, I just—"

Whatever else she was about to say is swallowed by the sudden, urgent press of his mouth; the heated slide of his tongue. She gasps a breath, tangles a hand in the hair at the nape of his neck, and entirely forgets she was talking. Tugs at his shirt until it's the rest of the way off. Lets him lay her out on the bed and slide her dress down and down with the kind of close regard that makes her skin hot; makes her want to drag him down and hold _him_ still—

It's not that she doesn't know how to be patient. It's just that it's making her nerves swoop and skitter as his mouth moves hot across her skin; as he presses kisses to the soft skin on the inside of her elbows; the underside of her breasts. It's just that if she reaches out, she's afraid of holding on too tight.

Jaime murmurs, "What was it you dreamed about?" next to her ear, and works his way inexorably down to the soft skin on the inside of her thighs, works his way higher until he sets his mouth over her clit; until she arches off the bed, shaking beneath him. She doesn't have an answer, beyond the high, wordless cries he draws from her over and again after that, with his lips and his tongue and with his fingers.

He's quieter, later; when he's inside her. She didn't expect that somehow, when she pushed him back against the headboard and they fumbled the rest of his clothes off with unsteady hands between kisses; between her hands on the length of him, distracting him while he's trying to work out which pocket of said clothing the condoms ended up in. When she sinks down onto him, it's slow enough there's a fine tremor in the muscles of her thighs when she moves again; his hands on her hips keeping her grounded; pressing hard enough to leave marks, she thinks, when their rhythm stutters every so often, when he draws in a sharp breath.

His eyes are very wide in the dim light; watching her, pupils blown, as she rocks against him. She'd thought it might be more frantic; that he'd predictably run his mouth— but it's quiet beyond the sound of their stuttering, gasping breaths; almost unbearably intimate. All she can see are his eyes; the dear, fine lines on his face catching the light as they move together. It astounds her how much she trusts him with this; it astounds her that tomorrow they will both be gone from here, back to their lives, and that might be the end of it. Worse things have happened, she knows; but it makes it feel reckless, and a little melancholy.

It makes her breath catch and shudder, as his hand slides from her hip across the curve of her back to pull her closer; as the way he moves beneath her shifts; starts to quicken— It almost takes her by surprise when it hits her; a slow rising wave of pleasure that has her curling over him for a long, languorous moment before he arches under her; tenses against her.

She thinks how last night she had wanted to see him gasping and wrecked; how all her imaginings would never quite capture how it softens him now; quite how it makes him look at her.

Jaime reaches a hand up to brush across her cheek where she's flushed and still breathless. Leans up to kiss her, before he pulls back to meet her gaze and says, as serious as she has ever heard him, "Give me a year, to finish it."

***

_Oldtown - Present Day_

Two floors down, her own room is laid out neatly with her outfit for tomorrow; her files for the new consulting client meeting laid out for one final review.

Up here, the view of Hightower is better; the room messier with clothes and belongings that are warmly familiar to her now when she opens the door. It shouldn't exactly be surprising: this isn't the first mystery hotel room she's been handed a key for over the last year— and yet she hopes, now, it might even be the final one. Not that she doesn't enjoy the things these hotel rooms bring, but— She's not quite made for secrets. It's been long enough for things to be set in motion; long enough for her life to begin to be her own again, back in King's Landing.

And long enough, as of today, for Jaime to finally have found a way to disentangle himself outright from the family firm.

"Ah, you're early," he says now, emerging from the bathroom clad only in a towel. There are cold glasses of something no-doubt expensive and fizzy waiting on the table; no mistaking the delight on his face at seeing her. "Which is good, because we're celebrating, and I’ve heard wonderful things about the rooftop infinity pool here."

"Oh, have you now?" she says, biting back a smile. She takes a moment to deal with the fact her mouth still goes dry at the sight of him like this; at how glad she is just to see him whole and relatively unharmed after the corporate carnage he's just walked away from. “I can't wait.”

And then he’s before her, his mouth hot and sweet and warm as ever, and all she can think is that they’ve got the rest of their lives to be getting on with. 


End file.
